The Greatest Generation - Terrible, Terrible Clip Show (S2E22)

Episode Date: July 6, 2016

When Riker gets some DNA in him, it’s not just from another romp on the holodeck. Unfortunately, the STD test comes back positive and it's a race against time to save his life. Dr. Pulaski hatches a plan to make Riker re-watch episodes of the show that would even make Captain Picard shudder. Is Chief O’Brien trying to give Pulaski a heart attack? Is Troi going to be ok when Riker’s most erotic dreams leave her in the lurch? Is the Captain ever going to recover from being bald-burned? It’s our most ill-advised episode yet, and the one that took by far the most work!

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friendsofdisoto for labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Trek podcast by two guys who kind of wish they weren't even doing a Star Trek podcast at this point. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Prantica. I logged into Canadian and UK iTunes the other day. I can't remember which one it was, but one of them had like two or three really angry reviews about About our show Really? We were real assholes for saying that we were embarrassed to like the show and that all we were doing was Shitting on it and laughing at our own jokes. That's pretty accurate actually.

Yeah, I think that's sort of what we're putting out. Five stars for accuracy. And we'll just take the four off the top as tax and apply them to your iTunes review. Hmm. Well, I don't think anyone from the UK has any standing to criticize anyone else for embarrassing choices. That's for sure.

Speaking of reviews, we're probably, I mean, when this episode comes out, based on the rate that people have been going on and reviewing our show, I think we've almost certainly will have crossed the 500-view mark on the US iTunes store. It's true. So, I just want to say, like, this is your last opportunity. I would say at the end of this week, we will close the window for people to get in their screen grabs of their reviews and sending them into Drunk Shimoda Plus contest at gmail.com. And just one point of clarification,

we have to see the review on the iTunes page and not as you're writing it. I know it's easier to take a picture when you're writing it because it doesn't show up immediately, but it would save us a ton of work if you could just wait to take that screenshot. So our basic mission for this podcast was just to save us a bunch of work in general. Yeah, we have what's the least that we can do?

We've really fucked that up big time. We're like, oh, people like it when we drop in clips, let's edit tons of clips into the show. Hey, if you're thinking that you have no chance of winning this t-shirt, I'll have you know that there's, I mean, there's probably about 35 entries at this point. So I think those are pretty good chances. People have gone real hard on leaving the reviews and left off the part of taking the screenshot and sending it in. So your chances are dease.

Yeah, this is some real pod on pod conversation right now that here's the thing. Like, I'd typically skipped a clip show anyway if I'm just watching it on television. And if you're a podcast consumer, I imagine you're not listening to this show either. So we could do anything. Yeah, it's like being on stage with nobody in the audience. It's kind of liberating in a weird way. Yeah, I think we could get really weird with this one. This may work and it may be a terrible defeat.

This may cancel our show. Yeah, if the network gets wind of what we're doing here, they might pull our funding. Yeah. This is becoming a speech. You're the captain, so very entitled. I'm going to type a ramble on about something everyone knows. So this is episode 22 of season 2, Shades of Grey, the notorious last episode of season two that was really it was really just a challenge to fans like I dare you to keep liking this show after we do this

shit to you. I had not seen this episode since I was little and I mean its reputation is and I mean, its reputation is massive as a towering failure. But as I was watching it, I was surprised at how much meat there was here. Like, you're 20 minutes into the episode before we get our first clip, and that surprised me. Yeah, I mean... It's a bit of a sort of... It's a bit of a sort of... It's a bit of a sort of... It's a bit of a sort of... It's a bit of a sort of... It's a bit of a sort of... It's a bit of a sort of... It's a appeared that they sort of tried halfway Before completely giving up. Well, I think the two places that it fails are one

I don't think that the tracking order of the clips is great. Yeah, yeah and The other is I feel like the drama between Pulaski and Troy trying to treat Riker Really gets repetitive after a while. And that is kind of a shame. Other than that, it's not the worst premise for a clip show. I mean, it's not like they're sitting in the living room of their sitcom house going

remember the time and then just having a random clip from a previous season. There are way worse examples of this format out there. And that was a big surprise to me. They clearly had some budget here to use because let's just go into the episode and I think you'll be able to tell where these opportunities are. So the episode opens up on one of these opportunities, which is an outdoor set. I mean, it's a set, but it's like about as good of a jungle

as you're gonna get on television. And it's got running water, which is extremely expensive. Right, and it's Riker is like sitting on the bank of this of this crack, and Jordy comes up to him, and Riker is just like, he's just in a mood. He looks like Sad Keanu. Yeah, he's eating a muffin.

Some of the dry muffin falls out of his mouth. Yeah. And he's got a big gash in his left ankle and Jordi does that thing where he like puts on a stance like he's really looking at something. You know when you really look at someone for the first time? He uses his thumb and pointer finger to like touch the side of his visor. Like squinting is somehow helping. Yeah, he's changing the focal distance between the lens and the element. Yeah.

As we do in filmmaking all the time. Right. And so because Riker has been injured, I guess procedure is to beam him up to sick bay, but the computer is throwing up an error message because it's detecting alien bio in his body. And so the doctor insists on beaming down to check him out before she can sign off on breaking this quarantine procedure that is like the first time we've heard of this but seems like a good idea.

Noted transporter fob Dr. Polasky mounts the transporter and gets totally over-ient in the process. I hope these are the right coordinates. Just getting doctored. Yeah, and she's like, nice job wise cracking on my deepest fear you fucking prick. And uh, so she beams down and she does detect that there's something going on in his leg, but she doesn't feel like there's a good enough reason to

just leave him to die on this planet. So, uh. They've beamed up way more dangerous shit than Riker with a cut on his leg. Yeah. Like without even thinking they've done that before. So they beam him up, they take him to Sick Bay, and he's kind of in, isn't this ridiculous

that this is happening to me emergency room mood? There have been, have you ever been in the ER or like, with somebody in the, in the ER that's like this? Yeah, that seemed a little familiar. He was, he was kind of jaunty about it in the best way. When, early when we were dating, my wife was cutting an avocado to make herself a salad and got a very bad cut on her finger that she needed to go to the ER for. And when I got there an hour later, like they let me in and I just saw her like down the end of a hallway being pushed on a wheelchair and she saw me and just like laughed hysterically because she was like, you know, embarrassed and trying to, you know, have a good time with this ridiculous situation.

And I feel like like, freaks to his credit really like nailed a real thing that's not the obvious thing. Your wife was in the avocado ward of Cedar Sinai. Yeah, actually Beth Israel, but you had the right idea. Yeah, and I mean, this isn't a surprised anyone. Like, Rikers and Great Spirits. That's sort of his brand. Yeah.

Riker on brand. So they need to figure out what this thing is because it's not a virus and it's not a bacterium, but it is like both. And it's growing. Yeah, it's spreading along his neurons and she can't, there's no operation because whatever the like thing is,

it's fusing on a molecular level with the neurons that it's attacking. So. If there's one crewman on this ship whose vascular system pumps with such efficiency, that it could like speed along some sort of molecular invader, it's definitely one wheel riker.

Sure. Yeah, he's lucky it didn't stab him in the dick. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah. Vine could have been more powerful than anyone could imagine. So, to investigate this, Journey and Data are going to beam down and they have a little argument in the transporter room about whether data should just go by himself. And data, once again, is trying to sacrifice himself on everybody else's behalf. And there's another opportunity to drop a limb on some planet for data. Yeah.

Jordi finally talks data and letting him go to. They beam down and they find a vine. And data is going gonna grab for it and He's definitely like this is limb limb drop opportunity If ever there's going to be one on this planet and Jordi's like careful data and he says I'm always careful Jordi should have been like no, you're not yeah, that should have been the line in the script, right? it's totally like two guys at a bar and one of the friends is like,

I'm gonna have a fifth beer, no problem. I know I have to work tomorrow, but like, fifth drink, it's all good. And Jordy's like, what are you talking about? You never stop at five. Yeah, now they're outside the bar and he's like, I think I'm gonna sit on this guy's motorcycle. Yeah.

So he's like, no. Yeah, I mean, Jordy's doing his best to be a wingman here, but it doesn't stop data from grabbing for the fine. Data is an ugly, ugly side when he's drunk. But he grabs it and it like, it definitely like tries to lash out and they turn it over and it's got this real gnarly tiger claw of a thorn on it. And

Data like wrestles with the vine to keep it still while Jordy exizes it with the cutting setting on his dustbuster. Yeah, and the part about this scene that was hilarious to me is, uh, Jordy grabs the thorn with a roach clip. So he grabs the sample, they don't put the sample in anything. He just holds onto it with the roach clip and then they beam up. Yeah, he waits, I think he has a little box, but he puts it in the box in the transport room when they get back into orbit.

It's very strange. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's very sound science by either of them at that point. There are both six beers in, so, you know, and their defense maybe they're not thinking as straight as they could. Right. They gotta get amped up for their trip down

talking one long credibly unbroken sentence moving from the to the picture but no one had the chance to interrupt the first really quiet not so the car is following the doctor around six sick bay and a sick bay. Six bay, none the richer.

They're hanging out in six bay and they kind of keep going back and forth between her office and Rikers biopad. And the doctor is trying to explain to the captain, what's up, what the prognosis is, it's not good. Riker is definitely gonna die unless they figure out a way to stop whatever this infection is. And they aren't even close to that. Right, they don't know a thing one about this. And Picard is like stressing.

He and Riker have like a pretty heartfelt conversation in here. And Picard is like really emotional about the fact that his bestie is on the brink. But he has the doctor if there's anything you can do to help and she really zings him for being a bald. She says, you can get out of my hair. And his response is like the only time I've ever heard him use sailor lingo. He goes, I don't know. This is like, this is the scene where shit's about to go down. Yeah. And it feels like Picard's saying a little bit of a half goodbye without the patient knowing that he's actually saying goodbye at that moment, right? You know what I mean

Yeah, I mean Like you never you never want the person you're visiting in the hospital to know just how dire you believe the situation to be Yeah, so Palaski is like not afraid of saying that he is His life is in grave danger around riker. I mean, she's not holding back. She's never been known for bedside, man. That's for sure. Yeah. Picard maybe more so. Yeah. This is an episode that made me wonder if it was meant to be more or less in real time. Did you get that? Like, there's no... Yeah, there was mention that he'd be dead within

the hour unless they found a thing, which is a super convenient time frame. Right. Because that's that's how long an episode of television is meant to transpire over. Hey, Ben. Yeah. Why didn't they just take the leg? You mean and give them a data leg to substitute? Or whatever the pirate leg equivalent is in the 24th century. I think they could have saved his life pretty much immediately if they just sought off the leg, right? And they resorted to some civil war doctrine? I don't know. Maybe it was also in his blood system,

so it was attacking his neurology more generally. But specifically, it was making big inroads via the leg. I don't know. As it starts moving towards his groin, I think that idea flies out the window. Right. Although they did, I mean, we just found out that the man that got the world's first penis transplant used it to make a baby here in our time.

So we would imagine that a penis transplant is no big whoop hundreds of years in the future, right? Did we just find that out? Is that a thing transplant is no big whoop, hundreds of years in the future, right? Did we just find that out? Is that a thing that we did? Yeah. Are you saying you did find that out? I don't think that's something I was involved in or read about. But thank you for sharing.

It was a big news article. I don't read those Reddit threads. Our slashick news. You got to get on R-slash-dick news, man. So, one of the drugs that Polasky pumps and full of is tricordrazing. Yeah, that's where they take a tricorder and they put it in one of those blenders from YouTube. That seems like a super unimaginative name for a drug of the future, I thought. They make a fine powder out of it and then they, they macerated in some ethanol.

If you're having boner problems, I feel bad for you, son. Torpedialis might be right for you. Cool joke, Dad. The infection is advancing and shit is getting tense. So they wheel over this rig of brain needles. It's sort of like the immobilizing cage, if you have a severe neck injury, they'll put the cage around your head and they'll actually screw it into your skull. That's a modern medical device that I'm sure you're familiar with.

This is sort of like the horizontal version of that. If you're laying in a bed, the way riker is. Yeah, and this fucking thing scared the pants off me when I was a kid. Yeah, the effect is really good of the needle is stabbing into his head. Yeah, they're like, maybe like six or eight needles that are meant to be going into his brain. Yeah. And so what they're trying to do is stimulate his brain. And the idea is that active neural patterns will resist the virus for some reason.

We aren't meant to understand that. Yeah, so this has the effect of putting him into a dream state. And so this is our first kind of push it as the camera pushes into his face and we go into Riker's head. They beam down and Something on the planet surface has caused the transporter beams to scramble them all over the planet surface. So Riker finds himself totally alone on the surface of the planet and there's a very weird scene where he like goes out onto a cliff and yells

Anybody! He then just turns and walks away from the cliff and finds everybody in the other direction. Like he basically does that thing where he screams into a thunderstorm? Also, major props to the set dressing department breaking out the dry ice in a real big time way. Totally. I think it's the first kind of primitive or undeveloped planet surface that we see in the whole series. So this is like, this is the unveiling of the like Styrofoam rocks and very close up psych that become kind of watch words of exterior set design

and Star Trek, the next generation. That's our first clip, everybody. Yeah, should we maybe intro how we're going to do this from here on out? I guess, yeah. I thought you were talking. It was very disorienting for me Yeah, so we thought we would rather than play the clips that they play we would play the clips in which we talk about the clips that they play

In the clip show so this is our meta clip show we should drop in the the drop of data talking about how to strategize against Riker in that war games episode. Knowing that he knows that we know that he knows, he might choose to return to his usual pattern. Wait, wait, you're over-analysing data. Because this is the mobius strip of greatest gen episodes right here. Fair enough. We need a transition sound too, don't we? Yeah, it could right here. Fair enough. We need a transition sound too, don't we? Yeah, it could be this. Although that's sort of the sound effect of Greatest Gen Con 2017.

Yeah, that's... Sorry, that just happens automatically every time. That's definitely the brand of Greatest Gen Con 2017. I think we're in complete agreement on that. We could use the... We are hemorrhaging listeners right now. We could use that Wayne's World Sound effect that I used on an episode a few weeks ago where they go...

Let's do that. That'll work. Okay. a few weeks ago where they go. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, to go and what angle to approach. It's the most low stakes manual way of doing it things ever. And when he does it successfully, everyone like turns around and looks at him admiringly like, oh my god, your instructions were so clear. He told us to turn three degrees to the left like a pro, like a fucking pro. Oh man, like just further establishing like, you know, Picard might be big dogging him right now, but like we know who the swinging dick of the of the bridge crew is and it's definitely Riker William T. Right, there's then a scene

where Picard and Riker meeting up in the observation lounge and Picard continues to like really be a shithead to Riker about this issue of the Captain not going on away missions, which is basically just a scene to establish that unlike the original series, the Captain will not be constantly in needless harm and then they also like plant that Picard hates children in this scene. Ben, I've got to ask you something before we get off this scene that has just, I can't get it out of my head. I'm going to ask you a question and then I'm going to support the statement, all right? Okay.

Does Reiker have any reason to believe that Picard is not a pedophile based on what he tells him in that room? Because the way he says it, and the way he acts towards Wesley when he finally goes into the bridge later, like do you remember what he says? I knew your father was you. It's a classic Get in the Van line. It's, hey boy, I know your father.

It's okay. To look around. I mean, it's pretty messed up. And if you were interviewing for a job, Ben, and like, upon getting that job, your new boss like, oh yeah your new boss staring out the window saying I don't feel comfortable with children. How is that not a a classic I'm a pedophile but I don't want to tell you I'm a pedophile sort of move. It is a full blown classic I'm a pedophile move and boy it's given me a lot to think about

What a beautiful memory Adam. Yeah, it's really great. How early we ruined the show for a lot of people Like right out of the gates and that would be a recurring bit that we would go back to again and again Yeah, that's really the joke that keeps on joking. Yeah, everyone feels good about that joke. Yeah, that joke hasn't cost us drama in the least. I still think it's really funny. Yeah, me too. So this is not helping Riker's situation at all. I don't know, it's helping a little bit, but they decided to tweak it up or whatever. So like what's happening here is a Pulaski sort of running the ones in the tw So, like, what's happening here is a...

Polasky's sort of running the ones in the twos, like, work in the mixture of the drugs, and Troy is there to sort of interpret... Right, and hunt on the mic, kick in the rhymes. Yeah, exactly. She's there to sort of interpret what's happening inside his head, because there's no way for Polasky to know what's happening there without choice. So she's sort of interpreting what the drugs are doing to his mind. And that's sort of a fun interplay, I guess.

Yeah, like, Troy can kind of report back to Polaski, like what kinds of dreams Riker is having. And as they, as they work through this, they work out that like one kind of dream is... Wet. Super unhelpful and one kind of dream is more helpful. The super unhelpful kind are the boner dreams, I will call them. And they start rather delightfully with him trying to kick it to Gainon. Riker and Gainon put on a little play acting scene in 10 Forward, where Riker puts the the smartest, most letgerous moves on Gainon that I think we may be ever see in the whole series. Like this, this might be the defining moment for Riker's character as somebody

who claims to be able to smooth talk with him and what he does when we actually see him in action is so fucking horrible. I love this scene so much. It was like watching two champion tennis players rally for like five minutes. They are just shooting dialogue that could forth in like such a charismatic way. I dug it. I was not creeped out by it at all. I thought it was hilarious. Well here's the question and I sort of like in retrospect thought about it in a different way. What is your read on what they're doing? Are they a doing an honest depiction of what it is

like when they, two of them are in a bar looking to pick somebody up or be where they kind of putting one over on Wesley and playing a practical joke on him. This is how you pick up women. But you're inviting me in. And that's sending you away. That's more than I expected. enjoying it so much that they could only be making fun of Wesley to his face because look, what Wesley's asking for isn't something that anyone else can give him. Like, there is no such thing as credible relationship advice

when you're 16 years old or whatever. You go out there and you get your heart broken a bunch and that's how it happens. Right, and everybody tells you, like, oh oh this is gonna suck and you're like, and then you go and find out it really sucks. Yeah, and I think that's their way of dealing with Wesley's request rather than giving him the adult truth, which is, yeah, you just sort of get your reps and you figure out who you are and you figure out who someone else is

and maybe it works and maybe it doesn't. Like, that is not as satisfying as play acting, a, play acting a non-sex introduction to like a cinematics movie. Like, it was so great. And like, I feel like both actors, I feel like Freaks and Goldberg in this scene, like they let the mask slip just a little bit.

Like, I feel like you're seeing some real joy from them in this scene in a way that you don't see it in many other parts of the show. Like, I would have loved to hear the oral history of this scene, because I've got it straight. I would have loved to just walk past Freaks' Starwagon to hear the oral history of this scene. Cause I've been at strange. I would love to just walk past Freak's Starwagon after they finish shooting it

and watch it bounce up and down on the suspension. Hahaha. So squeaky. Hahaha. If this trailer's rocking, don't come in, okay. Hahaha. Hahaha. Oh, man.

Good times. God, you know, if we're getting dinged for being a show that laughs at our own jokes, this is the most concentrated version of that form. I mean, this is the good stuff right here. This is the, yeah, this is the rarefied joke laughing at. This is the uncut joke dope. This is us really delivering on the promise of our show.

Thinking we're real swell. This is joke masturbation. Yeah, I mean, the story with Shades of Grey is that they're saving money, right? That's what we're told, but is that revisionist history? I think I read that like the Borg's episode and one of the other ones from this season, they kind of let rip, and by the time they were at the end of the season, they were like, fuck, we don't have any toe left, we got to do something cheap.

And it's sort of like the opposite of what's happening to us here because we spend a lot of time preparing this. And you are right to observe that it's a pretty masturbatory exercise. Very true. Should we get on to the next clip? Yeah, the fourth clip in this first section is an emotional good-dye scene between Riker and Troy, but viewers of our podcast might also remember this episode for a really fun scene involving Worf and Sampainsticks. Worf's part Mitzvah is, it involves him walking down this central channel as the Klingon warriors standing above him, hitting him with the, the painsticks.

I travel the river of blood! DOOOOOO! DOOOOOO! We just got an email from a listener who found his worth toy from when he was a kid, like the Wharf action figure included some painsticks, and he took a picture of these, and they're just like comically dildonic looking in the, in the tenor plastic representation of them. There is no other thing they could be, besides giant dildos. Like, they must have repurposed them

from some Hentai action figure from Japan, right? You know, like, they're like, oh, we got a bunch of purple dildos that scale to being about four feet long. What are we gonna do with them? I don't know, throw them in with the warf toys and make them painsticks or something. Oh man, and this, he sets it up in a little diorama where it's like Worf and Riker and

they're both staring at each other holding these giant doldos. It's kind of a perfect scene. Yeah, it's like Worf and Riker have made one holodeck program that they can both really get into. Imagine the scenes you could act out with those figures and those props. It's really beautiful. Yeah. So he just walks down the middle of this channel and gets painstackified and yells a lot of

shit in English and clinging on. The fire of the rainquish fills over my hands. my hands! Oh man, I'm sure you're really going to enjoy editing this one. Just us laughing at our own shit. This is the point in the episode where they realize that the memories they're playing are a little too benign and they decide to turn the settings up to sex. Which is a funny thing to see Troy reacting to. She's like, oh, I'm used to this not just being a mental simulation. I think when you think of sexy Star Trek episodes, there's none sexier than season two episode eight justice.

That's not season two, is it? Yeah, I think it's season one. We should talk about how these aliens look, these Edo. Yeah, we should. These are not fish people. No. These are not dog people. They're described as almost identical to us. I think in the beginning of the episode,

and they are all blonde. So it's like kind of a Aryan master race of aliens. The women all have curly hair and the dudes all have just kind of like 80s blonde dude haircuts. But they all are basically wearing like like hanker chiffs that have been tied together strategically to hang off of their bodies. Yeah. Like if you were, if you were going to sit on any of the furniture, I think you'd want

to put something down first. That's, that's the level of coverage we're talking about. Yeah. This is like, this is a level of coverage where like, if this was a main cast character on any TV show at any point, if they got as naked as these people are, it would be like a very sexy moment in a television series. But these people are all just kind of running around like this. That's their normal way of life. They have a very hedonistic lifestyle. They all look like cinematics adult film stars. Oh yeah, they definitely, like there's

a lot of good looking enough That they're like on the line of severe looking Yeah, there's a lot of early 80s era boob jobs Yeah, let it's Corey spelling level of boob jobs Yeah, it's like it's sort of like a any any like CG alien in a film in the like post Jurassic Park but pre I don't know like Avatar era where it's like like I can see where you're going with this boob job but it's not quite plausible. It's like a weird combination of like Hitler's final solution fantasy and like late night soft core pornography.

Yeah. It's real weird. But everyone seems real nice. Like that's another part of it. It's not like they look like they're filthy porn stars, but they are sexy Mormons. They're really nice and innocent sounding. And they, I don't know, there isn't that undercurrent of filth that you might associate with. It's not what you're describing them.

Yeah, yeah. They aren't just a fight. The number of moose knuckles on the dudes in this episode is so fucking upsetting. It's almost all you can focus on is just like, wow, you can really see the outline of the tip of his dick in this costume. Yeah, it's so much putty. Yeah. Well that inspired a very negative review on iTunes and I don't think we could really play the moose not clip without playing this following clip. Sure. Get it, get it, get it, get it, get it.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel. Hey, this is Adam and Ben with a special message for you. Thank first of all we just want to thank everyone for all of the nice reviews we received over the last week especially, but something was brought to our attention Ben and I think you're the best person to address it. I'm very upset about this Adam. Some person has gone on iTunes and left a review that takes exception to our usage of the term moose knuckle in the episode about the Edo in which Wesley is running around with the kids and falls into the flower

patch and is nearly put to death over it. Let me read to you the message bin that we got on our iTunes review. Subtick line, Moose Nuckle, one star by Jimbo925. Hey, Beavis and Butthead, Moose Nuckle is used for a woman's private parts. Not a man's, think about it. I really don't agree with that. I think that if anything, Lucenuckle refers to any situation in which pants are bunched up around genitalia in an amusing way. And if you go on urban dictionary, I feel like that corroborates what I feel

about the term. I mean, yeah, you actually have an urban dictionary account. Like, you actually have to log in to Urban Dictionary. That's how into it you are. I just feel like this is a huge miscarriage of justice. And if I just don't think that we should have to suffer this one star review because some idiot doesn't like our usage of the term moose knuckle. In many ways, it's my favorite review we've ever gotten.

But I don't like that it's only one star. All right, the only way I can see to claw back at some justice for us is if everybody listening right now goes to iTunes and leaves a nice five star review to bury this essentially. Yeah, let's hold it underwater until the bubble stop. Yeah, and go ahead and go find that review and it asks if the review was helpful. Click no and report a concern. If anybody is a rock and knuck, it's this guy. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So let's get this thing wiped off the page. I think it's a bunch of bull crap. Do the right thing, listener. Go to iTunes, help the greatest generation. Write this horrible, horrible wrong. So it was written and so it was done. Yeah. That was the first time that I felt like people were really on our side with this show. Because, you know, we did take a lot of shit early on, especially in various comment sections about not being real Star Trek fans

because we were expressing times we felt ashamed or embarrassed about our show or our fan relationship with Star Trek. And our listeners really came through for us in a huge way. It was so awesome. I think that was the first time we really felt the awesome power of our listenership and the responsibility we have to wield it responsibly. Yeah. Because we really, we blew that review off of the internet.

Like, it no longer exists. And the guy actually wrote to apologize, which was great. Yeah. Yeah. Ah. to apologize when it was great. Yeah. Ah, in a many ways that guy gave us a beautiful, beautiful gift that day. What's next for Riker's porno dreams? Ah, so second up is a reference to the time that the Enterprise got jacked by the binars. This episode also featured the character of Minuet.

What a babe. Duh-lu, duh-lu, duh-lu, duh-lu, duh-lu. episode also featured the character of Minuet. What a babe. Not many of the crews left aboard. They've all kind of gone onto the star base and Riker and Captain Picard and just the skeleton are all kind of like engaging in some leisure activities. And, you know, of course, Riker is going to go check out the holodeck. If he has some time off It's like when the parents leave Leave the house, you know to a teenager all of a sudden like holy shit. I

I've got all this beer. I've got I've got the parents liquor cabinet and Right and I have all this time to masturbate Right. Yeah, the odds of somebody walking in on me while I'm in the holodeck have dropped through the floor And that's about as good as it gets But he gets down to the holodeck and there a couple of binars working outside it And so he have to call up a program under observation by strangers which I feel like really limits the kind of creative license that he would otherwise take.

You can see him, like, sort of searching his brain, like improvisationally, like New Orleans. Yeah. Jazz Club? Jazz Club. Yeah, Jazz Club. That seems in, in, in, in, so he calls up a jazz club, calls up an audience and, and a, and a, and a combo up on stage with a trombone for himself or his, he calls it, the innovation drums and a bone for me. The computer's got to be so confused at that request in that moment.

Like, yeah, contextual error, please re-request. that moment like yeah contextual error please re-request the uh they had to cut this for for syndication but originally a huge dildo is materializes on stage and he goes no no no I'm not that kind of I'll be providing the bone around here now I'll need someone to play with he doesn doesn't want it to be crowded, so he has the computer dial it back so that there's just one super hot blonde babe in a red dress, and then he says, uh, blondes and jazz seldom go together. So the blonde, I guess he's not allowed to go up there. It disappears, and a red head appears at a different table. He's pretty pleased with that, but decides to dial it into a more sultry woman. My name is Minuet and I love all jazz except Dixieland.

Why not Dixieland? You can't dance to it. My girl. Boy, is she easy on the eyes. He could have just told the computer, I want a girl that looks like one of the mobsters wives from Goodfellas. And could have saved himself a bunch of the request time there.

Ha, ha, ha. Oh, man. Really brings back memories, Adam. You know what's great about Shades of Grey is that they show the passage of time in terms of how much sweat is on Riker's body as the episode progresses. Did you notice that?

So they've got Riker up on the table and he's covered in a sheet, a sequined sheet, a sequin future sheet. And they've got a sheet to go in space. They got to pull down a little bit to reveal his prodigious chest hair, and they've squirt bottled the shit out of him at this point. He's getting sweatier and sweatier

as he begins thinking more and more about all the space chicks he's banged. One of the scenes they show is when he banged Sarah Connor from the Terminator 2 franchise on the Angel 1 planet. One of the most fun scenes in the whole episode is he sets up a meeting with Sarah Connor and Sarah has some clothes sent to him. So, so Rikers in the little condo with Troy and Tasha, and they're like, you're not gonna wear this, are you?

And Rikers, like, of course! Of course, I do this all the time. I was on that one planet wearing feathers, and I was on that other planet wearing like spiky shoulder pads. Like, you'd like, let's off all these examples of times where he's worn crazy shit. You're not going to wear that. Of course.

Part of this mission is diplomatic. I have requested an audience with a head of state and I will honor her by wearing indigenous apparel. I don't believe this. You're going to put that thing on and parade around like one of them? Why? What is this attitude on? On Cabbatris, I had to wear a furs to meet with the leadership council

and an armist nine, a word feathers. So he ducks behind the partition, puts on the costume and it is like, it is awesome. It's a plunge, it's a plunging V that would make the American apparel people blush. Like it Vs, it Vs, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, is and I'm like, God, I just wish I could do that. Like, very envious of that going on. So he's like, don't worry, I've got this cool costume in a meeting setup.

I'm gonna keep it professional. So he goes out to hang with Sarah Connor, who immediately puts the moves on him. Like, in a pretty, pretty evident, like, shit's gonna go down, right? Yeah. They lay on the bed, they're talking together. Riker actually calls what he's doing diplomatic relations, which is great. Like it's almost like smile and wink at the camera

before turning back to Sarah Connor and making out. And they do one of the classic naked gun transitions. Like they don't, they don't dissolve to an oil Derek pumping, but they're a train going into a tunnel. But they do, they do like a full two second dissolve to a campfire, we'll be back with the Ramsey's character. Yeah. Oh, that was really nice.

I enjoyed that scene quite a bit. Listening back to this, we've made fun of the show a lot for doing retreads of prior concepts, and I'm realizing that we do that so much more than the show. We're the worst offender. Seriously. Next clip, space Irish. But they do get down. Next clip, space Irish. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh That's code for it. A tour of his dick. And balls. Man. Boy, it's like you knew that clip was coming.

It's all, well, I didn't know what we said at it, but I was just thinking you had said prodigious chest hair in the process of setting that clip up. I know. Crazy. I am the cutest aboard. You will respond to my questions. I am the cutest aboard.

You are bored. Try and pull, ask you realize that making riker want to fuck is making things worse for everyone. It's making the virus grow in addition to everything else. So they need to remodulate what they're doing to his brain to send his emotional state in the opposite direction on the logic that maybe that will turn this thing around. So the first thing that he starts dreaming about when they do this is our farewell episode to Tashiyaar. I think we both agree that the character of Tashiyar has had many

highlights in her career on the Enterprise. Unforgettable highlights from a fully developed character, I would say. Absolutely. I took the liberty of putting together an in-memorium reel of some of her greatest moments and uh oh really yeah I uh I think sort of like the academy awards in memoriam montage I think it's only right that we take a moment and remember our fallen bridge officer Tashi-yar. I don't believe this you're going to put that thing on in parade around like one of them? this. You're going to put that thing on and parade around like one of them? I'm in a penalty box. Data, you are fully functional, aren't you? Of course, but... How? It doesn't feel artificial until the drug wears off. And you paid a price. She's dead. Oh.

I feel like I really came into my own as an editor of this podcast on that episode. Yeah, that was sort of the baby episode of this episode, which is proving to be a real armist of an episode. The thing that kills everything good about the show. So the memories continue to skew negatively as... Yes, and you would think that you are buying the farm would be the most negative thing, but it's not. It's not even close, I guess. Yeah, what could be more negative than a fellow bridge officer and friend dying

in the line of duty? Of course, it's Troy getting pregnant. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, is the most awkward pregnancy McLaughlin group ever. It's your one. We're in the conference room with all of the bridge crew and off by yourself is Diana Troy sitting at the very other end of the table. And what we get here is a really skin crawly conversation about what they should do with the pregnancy. It's like all the dudes on the ship suddenly think that it's their place to weigh in and

you know they they sort of line up along very predictable character lines. Warf is like kill it kill it now kill it with fire. They do warf wants to basically basically drop a rough at Kaiser. Like, he is so stone cold about this. Yeah, yeah. Don't date, or if you're 16, ladies. Once they sort of get some encouraging results with this, they start to really like dial it up to 11, right?

Yeah, I mean, if being sad is driving this virus towards towards slowing its growth, what would what would anger do? And that's where they start showing some clips of some ass kicking, both received and given. Pretty early in his in his appearance on the Klingonship, the in his appearance on the Klingonship, the second officer, Klaag, is really starting to kind of test Riker's boundaries and test his commitment to the challenge he has taken up. And it winds up being that Riker has to like, suck her punch him and knock him to the floor. They ordered her to like get him to shut the fuck up and leave him alone.

He does that thing where he like accepts an insult, like a virt's eyes for a moment and then like beats his ass. Yeah. Which is sort of like, I'm a little surprised that that isn't such an obvious telegraph of what's about to happen, right? Yeah, you would think a cling- I guess a cling-on probably would never like faint away from a fight. Yeah. So maybe that's a total new one on-on flag. Like he's never seen this particular stunt pulled in any bar fight. Yeah, but Ryker basically acts like he gets the vapors and they like stiffens up and kicks the shit out of him. Yeah, and he really like plays him. Yeah, I think Jonathan Franks is starting to demonstrate himself to be like he can really sell a fight. Yeah, a couple times this

season they've given him like compound fight scenes with like moves. Like the guy can do it. And it wouldn't be an episode in which we're talking about fates scenes if somebody didn't go through a glass table. Riker shows Quinn to his quarters and I think he asks him about what is in his his tra trapper keeper. And Quinn's like, oh, this was actually for the doctor, but you know, I can make, I could show you, it's actually a superior life form. And Riker's like, what do you mean superior life form? And Quinn's like, let me show you.

Yeah. Zip. Yeah, he opens up the tra or keeper with that velcro sound that So Riker's like you're acting real weird and it and he tries to leave and Quinn's like It does like you and Quickly starts to put a whoop on Riker. I think Riker tries to throw the first punch, but Quinn just throws like one of the greatest roundhouse kicks of all time.

This fight scene is so great because they don't even try to obscure that they're stuntman. No, yeah, this is definitely the same guy that they use when data is dodging lasers, like just with gray hair instead of green tan just an ill-fitting wig yeah ill-fitting uniform and it's like ax kicks yeah he's like about 60 or 75 pounds lighter than word Castello the actor that's portraying Quinn but uh got a riker just gets this shit kicked out of him yeah he really earns earns the nickname Gregory Roundhouse Quinn. I miss Gregory Quinn.

Yeah, me too. You think he's still an admiral? We haven't seen him since then. I hope so. I like to imagine that they've sort of demoted him into a desk job somewhere where he can't hurt anyone. Common dance at the Academy. Yeah. I am a cuter subord, lockpages on that vessel. I am a cuter subord, there are four lights. They're really getting some positive feedback from all of these negative emotions. So they very quickly go into all of the memories that Riker has of him getting his ass kicked and nearly dying.

And there are several. Like this one from symbiosis. In the last episode he gets encased in that in that clear shield that ecopapa 6 of 7 shoots at him. And then this time around T-John gets him in the iron claw, the electrical claw, and holds him hostage. Yeah. It's just this man will die if you don't give me my drugs and Picard's like, nah, you're not going to kill him, you're not a killer. So, so, so, Frakes, listen, you remember that last episode where you just stood really still and you had that scared look on your face? We need exactly the same thing.

Can you do it? We also got to revisit the really weird episode where we meet the Ferengi. The surface is covered in these crazy crystal structures and the crystals are the reason that energy is being dissipated and absorbed by the planet when the Firingaway team starts attacking them by flinging lightning bolts out of these crazy blue whips. Yeah, if there's one like style of weapon that you want, you know, for aiming at someone far away, you definitely want its method of discharge to be like whipping it around your head and sort of snapping it across yourself. Yeah. Super accurate from the 50 yards that they were shooting them. Well, maybe on Ferenganar, they train them from youths. You're learning your rules of acquisition,

and you're learning your whipskizzles. Maybe the most disgusting scene of this selection is definitely when Armas drowns Riker in his pool of blackness. Riker's talking shit to Armas. He's really like, he's not playing his games anymore. He's ready to show him who's boss. But Armas turns the table on a pretty hardcore by dragging him into his goo. Yep.

It's a really intense scene. It's like Riker gets pulled in and like we see all of his body and then just his hand sink into the goo, which is an awesome effect. It's so scary looking like to think about being submerged in oil like that. Like, I don't, I have no idea how they shot that, you know? You see his face and his eyes and his mouth are open and that's the scariest part.

Like the idea of the goo just going in your mouth like that. Like gross. I'm trying to imagine what it's like as an actor to like read ahead on the script and go holy shit. Like I'm gonna have to take a dip in some goo on a couple of these shooting days. I'm gonna have to be full body submerged in the lop. I read in the production notes that

Frex gets pulled into the pool and then he gets completely submerged but they surface a plaster resin head Modelled on Jonathan Frakes's face and so they sort of push that up through and then drag it back down So that's the effect that we see in the cut-to close up. It really works great It works so much better than any other effect in this show Because it's practical, right? Go figure. I've worked as the camera guy on a music video one time where we were using some black goo and it was like coming out of a character's mouth. And it was really like, like, deeply upsetting, even, you know, when I was there,

when they were like mixing it. And there's something so fucking upsetting about what that looks like. Yeah, there's something instinctual about that color coming out of a person or a person being covered in that color. Because it's so unnatural, it's this otherness. Yeah, but Freak's just fucking goes for it.

Like he's dragged into the pool, he's screaming his head off and he gets submerged and he gets real dirty. Yeah. Raker finally knows what it's like to be on the receiving end of being drenched in goo. That was a world class button right there. Yeah, that was I thought about cutting that clip a little shorter, but I felt like it would be a shame to leave that bit off. I thought about cutting that clip a little shorter, but I felt like it would be a shame to leave that bit off. You couldn't fully release until you got the end of that bit. So proving that Riker is a mind and not just a set of nervous reactions. One of the scariest things he's had to do is set the self-destruct on the ship. One of the scariest things he's had to do is set the self-destruct on the ship. It's a pretty abstract fear, I feel like.

It's not like being dragged by a creepy alien, but that's the next clip. We're going to set this ship to self-destruct and then see what's going on. So they go down to engineering and it turns out setting self-destruct is much easier than I remembered. I thought that they were going to have to like put in a bunch of codes and stuff but it's literally like they stand on either side of the engineering console and Picard says set the ship to self-destruct and the computer asks Riker if he's down with that and he's like yep and then that's it. They don't have to put in Omega-01. It's easier to launch nuclear missiles in Crimson Tide

than it is to destroy a starship in the future. Man, just think about the self-destruct scene in whichever of the movies that is. I guess that's Star Trek that Star Trek III maybe? Yeah. And they blow up all the Klingons so much better. And that's Star Trek III, that's a bad movie. Yeah, it's true.

I mean, I guess the federation learns some things from that experience, mostly that they need to make it easier to blow up a ship. Ha ha ha ha, smooth things out. Yeah. Alright, well the last and most scary scene that Riker fully experiences is from the episode Heart of Glory. What they come to find is a crew of three klingons, one of whom is severely wounded and as they find them the

the reactor on the ship starts to go critical. There's a pretty tense moment where YAR runs down to the transporter room to try and beam them off the ship and you sort of wonder if it was so important for her to be on the bridge before. Why is she now in the Transportor room when they have people who have the title Transporter Chief, right on board the ship But she is she is just barely able to get them off this ship before it goes Ballistic well, I mean we see the ship explode

ballistic. Well, I mean, we see the ship explode. Right. And then a couple of seconds later, we're going to expect like her to beam in a bunch of like wet red mist. Under the transporter pad. But luckily, she's able to capture them and bring them home. Yeah, there's a there's an supportive attempt where she she runs the transporter and it quite can't quite get a lock. So it was a real touch and go there. I think that after this they just show like a bunch of shots of different phaser shooting and punching and exploding and whatnot. But it's really like a long enough clip to have something to say about it. Yeah, they throw the montage here toward the end when things are getting at their worst.

And it's basically shooting phasers, people getting punched and kicked. And every ship that they've blown up on the show so far, they show blowing up. Which is kind of more than I remember. Yeah, I mean when you compress the like 40 whatever episodes that we watched does seem like there has been a lot of action. When in fact there has not. Right. Right. One thing I really respected about Troy in this episode is when when Riker was having all his boner memories, none of them centered around her. Yeah. She didn't like take that to personal. No, I think she's realistic. She knows Riker's a man about town or a man about the galaxy.

The man about the holodeck. Yeah. She's not going to change him. Well anyways, we've probably spent enough time talking about this fucking episode. So we should just get to R get you, Riker being saved. Yeah, it's the montage that finally drives the virus from his body. You're gonna need a montage if you get sick. Sure. So he's safe but sweaty at the end. Yeah, and he's clearly woken up, but they don't know how much of his consciousness is intact.

So as they start to like, you know, hold up fingers and ask him questions, Picard and Data walk in and they say, do you know who you are? And he says, of course I do. I'm Captain John Luke Picard. And that is the, that's the slide whistle for the second season. Yeah, it's like they wanted to take their viewership and totally de-escalate how excited they might be in seeing a season three.

Right. Let's set some expectations here, you guys. Right, which is ironic, because season three really sort of picks up on the promise of some of the better episodes of this season, I think. Yeah, it's a real head fake. Yeah, yeah, it's like neon, deon. Making you think he's gonna go one way. Uh, that's the end of the episode.

Did you have any other, I mean, not that there were any scenes that we didn't talk about extensively, but did you have anything else you wanted to talk about? Uh, no, did you, Ben, manage somehow to find yourself a drunk Shimoda in this clip show? Who is not the smartest one? Smottest one! Let the button go to control, Shimoda! Who you make the warp drive home? Warp drive home!

You give up the ship to a child, Shimoda! Drunk monster! Take it, put it up, stack it up! Doesn't give a fuck, everybody's drunk and touch it yours! Kidding robot, I'm bing bing bing bing bing! NO! Get this a drug, monster! Get this a drug, monster!

I think I have to give it to us on this one. I think we get the drunk Shimoto here because we did a ton of work digging through all the episodes to find the right clips to play and didn't really do the math on what a long drawn out self-congratulatory exercise. This would wind up looking like and a little bit embarrassed at the moment. I'm a lot embarrassed. Yeah, I mean, I think the best we can hope for

is that everyone who enjoys our show skips this episode and doesn't hold it against us. Yeah. We produce this episode with a large amount of help from our listenership actually, who like posted to uh read it and reply it on Twitter with some ideas of some clips to use so Yeah, we really appreciate the help. I think that we would especially have appreciated if

somebody had just said that's a terrible idea. Don't do that. Yeah, just skip it. Don't do it Yeah, where were you guys then Yeah My Don't do it. Yeah, where were you guys then? Yeah. My Shimoda, God, I hate to do this, but it's gotta go to Rob Bowman. But here's the reason. Like, I think we've referred to his comments about this episode as not being as negative as they really could have and should have been.

Right. Why didn't he go Alan Smithy on this episode? I totally would have. Alan Smithy exists for this very reason. Explained. Alan Smithy is the pseudonym for embarrassed directors. Oh. It's what, it's the name that is chosen by either directors

who have seen a project through to the end and then have seen its final result and decided to unattach their name from it. Or they leave in mid-production and then have a rando direct the end of it and then they just use Alan Smithy as a name to ascribe to that duty, the director duty. So. I guess I've heard of that in the context of feature films, but I don't know if I've ever heard of it for a television episode. Maybe the Guild Rules are different? Yeah, I don't know. It seems like if there was ever a time to do that for television, it would be this one.

Yeah. But at the same time, I got to tip my hat to Rob for like, he stayed the course, and he made an episode around this. There's some real connective tissue here, and it was not as bad as I remember it being. Yeah, I think it's a more sincere take on a clip show

than almost any clip show that has ever been done. And I would even say that, uh, like the performances that he gets out of freaks and Marina Certees and a Certus or Certees, I never know. And Diane and Maldar even are, uh, all really kind of on point. Like, yeah, it's like no one told them that this was a clip show. And they still gave it their one hundred which was admirable yeah yeah the

greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss why well it's a great opportunity to see me and been in person that that's not all f.o.d.s from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it. The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates

in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level.

We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org.

Look, your podcast apps already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. www.fixmomfund.org Look, your podcast apps already open, just pull it out, give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard, be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line, and boy, what do I, these giraffes do not smell good.

No, they do not, and they've such short naps. But I'm hearing we need to get on this arc. We gotta get on the arc. It is about terrain, It's about to destroy humanity Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. Oh, we're actually we're podcasters We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal stuff like that and you have a boat and say the world's gonna And so seem like something for us to check out

We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Oh no Ross and Kerry, available on maximumfun.org. ["Mexican We came two by two." What do you think?" Oh no Ross and Kerry, available on maximumfun.org.

["Mexican We came two by two." What do you think?" Oh no Ross and Kerry, available on maximumfun.org. Did you want to play more clips in this episode or did you want to go ahead and end it? I think we should, I was going to say quit while we were ahead, but that's totally inaccurate. I think we should let people get on with their miserable lives and move on to the end of

the episode. Move on to season three. How about that? We made it through the first two seasons somehow. The next episode is episode one of season three. Evolution. The crew fights for survival when a mysterious force attacks their ship's life support systems. Do you remember this episode? Adam? Not at all. At all. Not one bit. Well, I remember it's got a lot of Wesley Crusher to the boy in it. I can't quite remember if this is...is this the Nanai episode maybe?

Is it? I think it might be. It might be not. Maybe it's something that they like pick up out of a star... Star Trail or something like that, but I feel like... I feel like it might be the Nana X episode. It's a WinRick Colby episode, which may or may not have anything to do with its quality. We know him as the director of the season finale and like about a dozen other episodes.

Yeah, what is the critical response have to say? One reviewer wrote, there's nothing actively wrong with this episode, but nothing that really stands out about it either. Oh great, you really want to come out of the blocks on a new season with like an episode. A solid three out of five stars. Yeah, just a real C plus episode. That's great. Would you use a newly reinstated veto? Oh, I just felt the tingle of my veto powers return.

No, we got to see the first episode of a season. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to watch it. I'm excited to get out of season two and hopefully into some better episodes. And certainly, there will be better episodes of our podcast to come. That's for sure. Yeah, it'll be hard not to make an episode that's better than this one.

Yeah. There is no one listening right now. Do you feel a little bit of freedom about that? You could say anything then. No one will care. We could close the show without even thinking dark material for our music and nobody would know. We could close the show by saying that no one could talk to us on Twitter using the hashtag

greatest gen. And nobody could follow you at Cut for Time or me at Benjamin R. A. H. R. Now, there's nothing to talk about on Reddit at either our maximum fun or our greatest gen. There's nothing to talk about here. Move along. There's no reason to log onto the Facebook group,

greatest generation. There is no reason anyone should help support our show by going to MaximumFund.org slash donate. Like this probably encourages people to withdraw any sort of donation to us. Yeah. So we wouldn't want to bring that up. Now, you know, this is sort of like the tagline of the film Alien in space nobody can hear you try to get people to donate to your podcast. Now and and on a clip show podcast that's doubly true. If there was anybody to even say this to which there isn't I would say we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek the next generation and also an episode of the greatest generation,

but since nobody's listening, that's really an active utter futility. So I'll just say good goodnight Adam. Speaking of acts of utter futility, that was this episode of our show. Good luck with the edit.